There’s Only One Person Who Has Any Hope of Facilitating Peace Between Prince William and Prince Harry, Former Royal Butler Says

Had life shaken out differently, it would have been Princess Diana, the mother of both Prince William and Prince Harry, who would have stepped in to heal the ongoing rift between her sons, Diana’s former butler and confidante Paul Burrell said. But, since Diana died in a Parisian car accident 26 years ago last week, that’s obviously not possible, and the mantle to help mend fences comes down to one person, and one person only, he said: Princess Catherine, William’s wife and Harry’s sister-in-law.

“The only person that has a faint chance of reconciliation with the boys will be Kate,” Burrell said, per The Mirror. 

Catherine was dubbed the “regal peacemaker” after being spotted subtly giving William and Harry the chance to speak alone following the funeral of their grandfather, Prince Philip, in April 2021—just one month after Harry and wife Meghan Markle’s explosive sit-down with Oprah Winfrey. As the three left St. George’s Chapel in Windsor, Catherine took a few steps back and allowed William and Harry to talk face-to-face for the first time in months.

Since then, unfortunately, tensions have continued to mount, most specifically surrounding Harry and Meghan’s eponymous six-part Netflix docuseries and, most especially, Harry’s memoir, Spare, released in January. 

There was a time when William, Catherine, and Harry were a tight-knit trio; Harry said before William’s marriage to Catherine that he was “absolutely delighted” to welcome her into the family. “I’ve always wanted a sister, and now I’ve got one,” he said, per The Daily Express. “I’ve known Kate for years, and it’s fantastic that she is becoming part of the family.”

But inside the pages of Spare, Harry wrote that he knew William was “gone forever” after he and Catherine were married. “The brother I’d escorted into Westminster Abbey that morning was gone—forever,” he wrote. “Who could deny it? He’d never again be first and foremost Willy. We’d never again ride together across the Lesotho countryside with capes blowing behind us. We’d never again share a horsey-smelling cottage while learning to fly. Who shall separate us? Life, that’s who.” 

Harry was in the U.K. on Thursday and Friday, where he attended the WellChild Awards and yesterday, on the one-year anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s passing, paid homage to her by visiting her burial site at Windsor. William and Catherine, meanwhile, were in Wales commemorating the loss, and the brothers are not known to currently be interacting.